Stress is the response of the human body subjected to an unfavorable stimulus. Acute stress is the effect of short term perturbing situations, often manifested by temporary changes in physiological variables. Acute stress for longer periods of time can lead to episodic stress. Even longer exposure to stress elements or traumatic conditions can lead to chronic stress, anxiety or clinical depression. According to World health organization (WHO), loss of productivity at work as well as treatment of mental health related problems cost large amounts of money worldwide. Hence detection of early symptoms of stress can assist in preserving the mental wellbeing of a large section of the vulnerable population.
There have been various methods and systems that are conventionally designed to simulate stressful conditions for determining behavioral and cognitive stress of humans. The inventors have recognized certain technical problems associated with currently available solutions pertaining to stress estimation and/or prediction as explained below. For example, typical stress estimation methods and systems use self-reporting of stress as the ground truth for comparison. However, said methods can be highly biased, may include false reporting and are inherently person-dependent. In addition, said methods are mostly found to be lacking a continuous metric for stress indication throughout a stress estimation session.